Bruce Broughton contributed the musical score to artist Mathias Poledna’s animated film Imitation of Life, the Austrian entry at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
The work of 155 artists and special exhibits from 88 countries are included, drawing inspiration from the model of a utopian dream by Marino Auriti who filed a design with the U.S. Patent office in 1955, depicting his Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), an imaginary museum that was meant to house all worldly knowledge. Auriti planned the model of a 136-story building to be built in Washington, one that would stand 700 meters tall and take up over 16 blocks.
Curator Massimiliano Gioni says, ” Blurring the line between professional artists and amateurs, outsiders and insiders, the exhibition takes an anthropological approach to the study of images, focusing in particular on the realms of the imaginary and the functions of the imagination. What room is left for internal images—for dreams, hallucinations and visions—fin an era besieged by external ones? And what is the point of creating an image of the world when the world itself has become increasingly like an image?”
“Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace) is a show about obsessions and about the transformative power of the imagination…”
The 55th Venice Biennale opens on Saturday, June 1st, and will run six months, closing on the 24th of November, 2013.